Who is “responsible” for quality? This is one of those interesting questions that on the surface of it seems really simple to answer depending upon your viewpoint … and yet the question itself hides a few thorny issues. In my experience, most people who claim they are part of a “Quality Assurance Team” are not aware of these issues and thus perpetuate a lot of false thinking regarding the question itself.

It’s very important to think about what this question actually implies. How this question is considered directly ties in with how we think about the notion of responsibility and about how we communicate that notion to others.